Farewell to the Fairground
by Agoni
Summary: AU and a tad OOC. Jasper arrives to Forks after his mother's death and must cope with life in a town where everyone knows your story. Edward's mute by choice, who'll get him to talk again? Possible slash and lemons p.s.I like to retain a bit of class .
1. Mother's house coat

When I was younger my mother would call me her 'little sponge'. When I got older I started to wish that it was true... I'd with I could suck up the pain like the 'the little sponge I was' so her frail body wouldn't have to endure it. It got hard to watch her close in on herself, watching her shut off from everyone around her. In her metal framed queen sized bed, curled in on her side while wearing her light pink housecoat. When I was younger I used to swing myself across the cold metal gold and silver bed frame sliding the round circles that closed in around the spokes up and down. When I got older I was barely allowed in that room. I made too much noise, too careless, too wild... just too much.

My father stopped sleeping in the bedroom with her. I figured it was too hard on him to see her becoming a ghost of what she once was. Golden hair, falling out, lacking lustre. Hazel eyes, dim and lifeless. Ivory skin, gone pale and sickly.

We left the house after she died... I could still feel her there in the walls, hear her laughter that had left her long before she left us, her closet still smelt like her. And that's why we left. I was 16. No, I wasn't a mama's boy, but I respected my mother. She was a good woman who didn't get what she deserved.... well that's what my grandpa on my father's side told me.

Before I left the house, I opened the folding, wooden paneled doors into her walk in closet and breathed the biggest breath I could muster. My nostrils started to burn, but I told myself I would commit her scent to my memory. I hugged her hanging housecoat around me, and for a moment it felt like she was there, with me. I could feel her long, red polished nails rubbing my scalp, itching right at my neck, lifting my chin up running her hands through my hair once more and telling me "Jasper Whitlock, you are long due for a haircut". She would hold the o's on the long and scold me without meaning it, a smiling playing on her lips. And I'd reply "I know ma. Jeez". "Are you getting smart with me boy?" "Mama, you're too smart, I can't run nothing by you."

"Jasper! The van is leaving and I ain't about to wait around for you boy!" That wasn't my mother's voice calling me from the entrance of our house, old house, the Parkins' new house. "Coming Pa". I grabbed my ma's scissors off of her vanity and took them to her housecoat. I suppose I'd make a spectacle out of myself if I went downstairs carrying it. So, close to the very bottom hem, where the sides folded over each other I cut a little corner of this life, my mom's life to take with me, and I left the rest of it behind. Marie, my mom's sister and my aunt would be cleaning out her stuff over the weekend, she could pick through what she'd always wanted from her older sister. Times were tough, what was most precious would be kept in the family, the rest sold or donated. Ma was practical, she would have liked the way Pa organized things.

"Take care Jasper", my aunt Marie told me this as she ruffled my hair, avoiding my eyes. I couldn't understand my no one could do that just yet. Look me in the eyes, make eye contact with me. Maybe they knew I'd hate the sympathy I'd see in them. "I love you aunt Marie." I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, she smelled like warm apple pie and grief.

She walked us to the big moving truck that was parked outside the house. It took Pa and I about two days to get everything in there. I hopped in the passenger side and looked out the dirt speckled window and watched as my dad and Marie exchanged some words. I saw her shake her head a couple times and Pa just wrung his hat between his hands before placing it on his freshly greyed head. He muttered something under his breath, kicked some stones and hopped into the seat next to me. Marie appeared next to my window and I winded the window down, clamping my hands on the plastic wheel and gently whirling it downwards. "Promise me you boys will look after each other, I'll call ya on Monday". She bent her waist across the window, and placed a wet kiss on my cheek "I love ya, love bug" she whispered it in my ear, I blinked and before I could understand what was happening we were driving down our, our old, the Parkins' new gravel road.

We drove through town, the wheels of the truck squeaked and swayed as we rode over bump after bump. The breeze of a summer coming to an end blew through my opened window, and I looked out at my old home. The town was getting ready for its' annual fair. Lights we're being strong over canopies, and if I were still living here I'd be helping dad set up his vending site for his metal works, and maybe Annie and I would ride on the Ferris wheel together. She'd pull out her pony tail and let her long auburn hair roll off her shoulders and shake it out as we rode up, up and away. We'd eat cotton candy, warm candied apples and maybe I'd work up the nerve to kiss her as the fireworks went off.

I think I came to the realization then that I wouldn't be coming back here, that I was currently driving with my reclusive father to some other small time that he hoped held no resemblance to this one, to forget about his high school sweetheart. That's one thing Ma had a problem with. She wanted us to stay here, to be with her, 'What about Jasper, and all his friends' my mom would try to remind dad. But by the end she was so far gone that dad could tell her anything and she's lost will enough to second guess him on it. I was leaving myself behind, at least I think I was. I said goodbye to the roads I'd ridden my bike on during my paper routes, I couldn't say see you later to 'Bills Barber Shope' where I'd gotten my first haircut, but I said farewell to the fairground where I could conjure up so many almost memories.

The radio was broken in the truck and the only sound were the wheels on a highway and my father's heavy breathing. The silence was almost unbearable. The past 6 days since my ma died there was so many things to say and yet so much left unsaid. Several hours had passed before I thought to say anything.

"Where are we headed again Pa?" He breathed deeply, sucked on his lozenge, "Forks, son." Those were the two sombre and sober words that lasted between us until we pulled over for our first pit stop. And as I mulled over the name of my new home I couldn't help the feeling of unease it brought with it.


	2. TV trolleys

I can see his brown curly hair in front of me, it's shaggy and probably just washed from this morning. He's sitting one row off my right and two desks up from me. I know in a moment or two he's going to laugh. His loud, boisterous and catching laugh, and I know that I'm going to hate him for it. He'll lean into the silky blonde head beside him and whisper some kind of cocky innuendo, and she'll slap him daintily on his toned arm and fake chagrin and then, he'll laugh. Just loud enough so it rips through every part of me. Fucking bastard.

I want to scream it at him, I want to hit him, hard, over and over again. I know that it wouldn't hurt him. He doesn't give a fuck about me, I don't exist in Emmet McCarthy's world. I was a mistake, a lapse in judgment that he's forgotten about, no one knows about, will never know about. Because I love him enough to leave him his pride. I love him enough to sit back and watch as Rosalie Hale becomes his source of affection. And I pretend that Emmet McCarthy doesn't exist in my world.

I feel sick and dirty in this classroom, while I sit against the wall gazing at the pupils in this shit hole known as Forks High home of the fucking Spartans. I burn holes in the chalk board as the chalk scrapes against it. Ms. Lowndes is writing notes on Anthropology and I can tell the board hasn't been washed in about a month. I pretend my neck can't turn to the side and I'm deaf in one ear. 'He doesn't exist, it didn't happen', that's a fucked up mantra, and it doesn't work.

I want to leave, to get out of this room, my own personal hell. But I'm stuck here for the next 45 minutes. 'Charles Manson was a psychopath", I want to laugh but that would draw attention to me. This is an actual fucking credit? I can hear Ms. Lowndes dragging in the trolley for the TV, why is it that everyone has a loose wheel? She asks me to plug it into the wall for her as she smiles with her wrinkled face, all bunched up at the sides. I guess even with her self help books from the 80's she can still tell when someone's a little pissed off. I push my chair from my desk, and it scrapes against the flour. Fuck. Noise. And I can feel people's eyes on me, even if I'm just in the far, far corner of them.

Most of all I can feel his eyes on me. Fuck him. I know he's trying to pretend that he doesn't actually see me, brown eyes looking at the screen that I happen to be heading towards. He doesn't REALLY see me, if his eyes happen to be draw to a moving subject then it's merely just coincidence that it happened to be me he sees. Rosalie can tell that she's lost his attention so she laughs all sweetly, and he laughs with her, louder, so I can hear? So I know just how happy he is now? I try to understand what could be so fucking comical that their laughter can fill up every space in my head, pushing and smothering every thought that I have. And then I realize it. It's me.

I'm the fucking joke. Poor, sad, lonely, depressed Edward Cullen. Faggy boy couldn't accept Emmet's rejection. "I thought we were friends, but he just didn't get it guys. He tried to kiss me and everything!" Those were his words more or less to my friends of 3 years, the ones whom I thought supported and loved me. It just took those 2 sentences for them to get freaked out, label me the freak and leave me the freak alone. Not one of them talked to me after words. Well Alice tried, but I was too in shock of what he told them to deny anything. I plugged the TV in and walked to my desk, alone.

I would have moved to the front, closer to the screen with my friends, well the people who were my friends, but now I'm forced to sit here... unaccompanied.

I can hear snickering behind me, my ears prick up and I can't help but shift to hear who it's coming from. Of course, Lauren Mallory was right behind me. Lauren, Jessica and Angela. It can be assumed that people like me would be taboo in a small town, or just hidden very well. Being what I am is shameful and disgusting. According to Father Jacob, I am wrong. It's just the beginning of the school year and I can already predict what it's going to be like.

Why bother speaking if you don't even exist?

**

So here's a chapter from Edward life atm Jasper hasn't arrived yet he's currently traveling in a moving truck. Reviews are awesome, they let me know if I'm making sense/ writing well, or writing something worth continuing. The chapters will be longer, I just wanted to get them out there and gain some interest. On that note my AN's won't be soo flipping long


	3. Skeletons of beds

The sound of rocks striking the truck woke me up. The sun was spiking my eyes with its rays and I blinked hard against the pain that it caused. I could see dust floating around the front seats, stuck between the windows. The tires picked up the loose powdered dirt. For a moment I was covered in a dirt snow globe, surrounded by spruce, pine and cedar. My father was staring blankly ahead, eyes dead-set on the road, he was thinking, muddling in his thoughts.

"Jasper, it's never good to leave that father of yours to his thoughts, you never know where they might take him. Some of the things he thought of when he was a boy, I got afraid to ask! He maybe my son, but that mind of his harbours dark places. He's a natural-born pessimist. He came into this world looking on the wrong side of it!" Gram's words echoed through my head. Gram, I missed Gram. I think... I was beginning to think like pa.

I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry and full of sleep. My mouth felt like it was packed with the dust that floated in the air and my tongue way heavy. I coughed quietly to clear my throat.

"Why don't you let me take the wheel for a while, you can let your eyes rest a bit." Pa turned and looked at my quizzically, cocking one of his wiry brows.

"Jasper, I don't know what planet you've been on but I'm about to pull into our drive." He turned his head back to the road before he finished his sentence and the truck eased forward, closer to the bungalow that would soon be our home.

The house was made of wood panels in a dark colour, lining the house horizontally. The house itself was two floors high and had a rundown shack to the side, a dirty shovel rested against the side of it, left over from the past owners. There was no garage, just an extended tin roof that branched off from the house and ended on two diagonal rusted metal support beams. There wasn't a nice wooden porch like there was at home, instead there was thick cement steps with painted black railings sunken in permanently to the stairs.

Pa put the truck in park and lifted the emergency brake, we both got out, Pa was eager to get out and moving and he walked to the entrance. I was greeted by a screen door that was endanger of falling off its hinges, it was in front of a wooden door that had a small window adorned with white fabric that would get in the way of seeing who was really at your door.

"She's in need of some work, but come hell or high water it ain't gonna be a problem for the two of us. Right, Jasper?"

I couldn't help but agree with his eagerness. This shouldn't be a problem, we could get started right away. I think I remembered where I packed the tools in the truck. There was a nice set of mahogany stairs to the side of the door and the walls were covered in a yellow and flower patterned wall paper, a closet to the left of the door opposing the stairs and straight ahead led to the kitchen with a refrigerator that Pa and I could both hear from here.

XXX

"Tomorrow, I start school", I said it allowed to myself in hopes of making it appear more realistic. Did this just happen? I'm sitting across from the Man in black poster I just pinned to my wall with thumb tacks.

Pa and I did the necessities first. Cleaning out the bathroom, and getting settled in there, building the beds and getting the linens set up, cleaning the rest of the house and unloading the truck into our makeshift living room. We'd assembled most of the chairs, tables and wardrobes we just hadn't gotten to the huge hutch for the living room. That hutch was always Ma's territory. She'd fill it with all her dainty things, figurines, painted plates and teacups and always her music boxes.

There was a whole shelf dedicated just to her music boxes. It started with Pa making her one on her 16th birthday, several months into their relationship. My granddad was a tin works man and his father had built music boxes, it was a trade passed down from generation to generation.

Pa had begun working on it when they first started to go out. He said something along the lines of Ma being like one of those catchy lullabies from those boxes, impossible to get out of his head. He strung the tin together, hammered the pattern for it and began carving a box to set it in. He had etched in a flower on a plain wooden box.

"Except that flower was anything but plain, you see that flower was a Bluebell. And Bluebells are one of the loveliest wildflowers in all of Texas, they're rarer and rarer these days, most of them have just disappeared. You're mother was a Bluebell Jasper. There aren't that many women out there as wonderful as her, she can't just be picked, you need to let her grow and bloom. And I'll be damned, she sure is wild!" Pa, Ma and I are out front on the porch. We're the happy family I remember. Ma and Pa are on the wooden swing and I'm sitting across from them on the railing.

"And Eugene you're still the flirty fox you've always been", Ma says this and Pa's face lights up in a way only she can make it light up. He looks younger, rosy in the cheeks. We all laugh, and they lean in for a kiss, embarrassed I look away. I learnt from then on, if you got into hot water with Ma and you were in need of her forgiveness, buy her a music box and you'll be in for a lecture but not a licking. It wouldn't even be a very good lecture, she got so preoccupied with new things.

I shook my head trying to clear it. Pa was down stairs, working on his beer. He worked hard today and I had a feeling he didn't want to go to bed just yet, neither did I but I had to be at school for 8:45 tomorrow.

It didn't help that he'd be sleeping in that bed. The bed that... he conveniently slipped out to buy us some groceries when I started to assemble it. The couch had come so accustomed to his body that there was a permanent indentation of him on it. I hope maybe one day he'll be able to sleep in his actual bed.

The room was bare, aside from the poles of gold and silver, the bones needed in making the skeleton of the king sized bed. I only thought about one slot fitting into another. I concentrated on the sound metal against metal made, the whirling of knobs being twisted into place, the coolness of the bars against my skin and the scrape the Alan key made while tightening it all together, fitting it as one.

The mattress flopped as I dropped it onto the skeleton of the bed, and a gust of her reached my nose. I left straight after making it and met Pa downstairs where he had a pack of Budweiser and an extra large pepperoni pizza, the groceries were already put away. We sat down on the couch together, there was no television to watch yet, we didn't have cable. We ate our pizza together making the occasional nod of approval accompanied by the sound of kadidid's.

"I can check for the radio, I think we left it in the front seat. There's got to be a plug close to here." I got up to head to the truck, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me down to sit on the couch with him.

"Jasper... I know, I know lots of changes have happened in the last couple of days. It's gonna take some getting used to but it's not all bad. We've got each other and a fresh start. I'm going to try, you know, to be here for us, which reminds me you do start school tomorrow. I'm not gonna be able to drive you but you have your bike to get you there. I put it in the shed; it's already full of air. The school's not hard to find, I'll write ya out directions or something." He mumbled the last bit out, waving me off with his hand. He was fit to be tired, it was a long day and he probably wanted to get to sleep.

I can't get to sleep. Everything feels foreign. It's not home; it's not what I'm used to. The wind blowing against my window is coming from the wrong direction, the insects chirping in the dusk have the wrong sound, and the wooden banister has the wrong texture. And I have no one to talk to. No one to lend me their ear. I have no Daniel to play ball and sneak into movies with, I have no George to go to concerts or work with. And I have no more Annie to hold or fall in love with.

"I need you Ma. Can you hear me? We need you down here."

I know I have to keep it together, or try to but I'm not used to this. I'm a big catty whompus. I feel like an alien in one of those movies Daniel and I watched. I check the time on my alarm one last time, 7:15 a.m., I think that's an appropriate time. I pull the string on the ceiling fan above my bed, letting the moon laminate my room. As I lay my head down on my pillow I reach beneath and hold a little pink piece of fabric to my nose and breathe in. Tomorrow I start again.

This is my fifth time walking up, the clock reads 4:30. My dreams were so vivid that some part of me woke me up so I wouldn't start believing. I arrive at the school and Annie's waiting at my locker for me, I loop my arm with hers and I walk her to her class except when I go she pulls me in and... well starts kissing me, open mouthed kisses, pushing her tongue against my lips, of course I open up to her and her tongue meets mine, and then I wake up.

I know that I ain't gonna get any more sleep so in the words of Gram I "get up and get at `em". Pa's got work with construction today, and we've both got appetites like starving dogs so I make like John Montague and make us a couple sandwiches. I'm used to loading them with crisp lettuce and tomatoes, it helps keep a person cool under the sun.

I can hear him on the couch, and I know he's in pain. You can hear it in his sighs and grunts, and see it in his creased forehead. He likes to pretend he's fine, making his eyes and mouth neutral, but there's one thing people forget about. Foreheads, it's a dead giveaway. And his is as rumpled as a used tissue right now.

I put on a pot of Arbuckle and wait for the suns flower to start blooming. Its petals are branching out by the time Pa coughs behind me.

"Rough night son?" His voice is throaty, and I'm betting his was worse than mine.

"Ha, any try at sleeping was pole-axed for me", I smile sympathetically at him. "Why don't you sit down and I'll get the fixins for us." He pours himself a cup and slowly seats himself down, he's in pain.

"That sounds delightful Jasper. Excited for school? I'm sure you'll make buckets full of friends. You know our real-estate agent?"

I've drawn a blank, "I think so?"

"Ha! I knew you weren't paying attention yesterday, anyway, his boy Edward Masen Junior, he goes to your school. Mr. Masen's a good man, you should be sure to make friends with his son." Something about the tone of his voice made it sound like the question of mine and Edward's friendship was not one to be debated.

"Sure thing, I'll keep an eye out for him".

"Good thinking. Right well I'm gonna have a late start at work today so, so you just go ahead and get ready." He cleared his throat again.

"Pa are you feeling alright?"

"Jasper just get ready alright." It was an order, not a request so I made my way up stairs and into the shower. By the time I had finished getting ready and had made my way downstairs, Pa was nowhere in sight.

On the little coffee table dawn on the napkin from the pizza place was a map for the school. Packing my sandwich into my pack I walked outside to the shed taking my time opening it up, I wasn't sure exactly if I'd be able to find my way inside.

Pieces of scrap wood, a few screws, and there in the far corner was Ruby, my good old bike. Sure she might have had a little rust on her and George called her 'plug ugly', but she was a faithful broad and I was sticking with her.

I lifted my leg over the side of her in a familiar routine and kicked off from the ground planting my feet on the pedals and began the well-known motion up, around and down. I passed by several other houses similar to our new one, the monumental library (I'd see what it was like after school), a grocery store, several others for knick knacks and a Baptist church. I rode my bike along the road, paying attention to all the different trees and plants as I passed.

Cars passed me, some honked. I guess I was a maverick on their roads. Fifteen minutes later and I was pressing the breaks in front of my new school, but really appeared to be a series of cabins clustered together. I jumped off of ruby, locked her up and took a deep breath. This was only a new high school, there was no point getting all chocked up about it.

FINALLY!!! Yes, long time, no update. Excuse time I guess... well to be honest I went to a shizzzzz load of concerts, so I can't entirely feel guilty about not updating. I didn't want to upload a really crappy chapter, so now after waiting I've uploaded a mildly crappy chapter. Just a side note/ promise, I will never wait this long to update like EVER again. Thanks soo much to all the people (cough 2 ) who reviewed , I get all warm fuzzies every time I read them, and another thanks to the wonderful people put me on alerts, you're pretty wise people might I add with my erratic updates. Wow long authors note. And in case it wasn't clear characters and the etc belong to the brilliance that is Steph Meyer. Reviews are more than appreciated.


End file.
